The mother with tattoos

At Matosinhos beach I saw a woman.
Hair styled. Makeup precise.
She could have stepped into a boardroom.
She could have read the news at eight.

She pushed a high‑end pram. Elevated, expensive, familiar.
The same gear I once used when I was a young mother.

Ink down her forearms.
Ink on her calves.
Ink wrapping her thighs.
Like drawings carved on a cave wall.
History. Memory. Ritual.

Her linen dress split in the wind.
Her thong flashed.
The flash landed in my body.

I wanted her.
I wanted to be her.
She was the me I stopped becoming.

I felt the weight of everything I had given up.

The abortions I did not want, but had anyway.
The place at a fashion school I gave up. Because my father said.
The tattoos I stopped at the shoulder.
Because the ones I have could still be hidden.

And now here she was.
A woman who went all in.
Who carried motherhood and tattoos without apology.
Who was not explaining. Not performing.
Just walking the beach with her child.

I saw her
I saw me

Everywhere I bent.
Everywhere I made myself smaller.
Everywhere I obeyed.

And then this woman.

She stood on the beach with her child,
tattooed like scripture,
poised like a dancer,
her life written in full view.

I saw her,
and I wept.

Because she was the proof.
Because she was the reminder.
Because she was the permission.
Because I saw my daughters.

And I saw how I was constraining and bending them the way I bent.
Saying no to piercings.
Saying no to tattoos.
Imprinting my obedience on them.

When the truth is this:
With AI, with climate collapse, with the world burning
who the fuck cares if my daughter pierces her bellybutton?

If my daughters want their belly buttons pierced,
or ink across her skin,
it will not destroy their future.
If they do it fully self‑expressed,
their future will live inside that.

She showed me what was always mine:
to mark my own body,
to take what I was given,
to keep nothing hidden.

This woman on the beach,
she released something.
She showed me where I go next.
She gave me back the self-expression that I betrayed.

I saw her, and in her
I saw myself.

Whole.
Complete.
Unapologetic.
Unhidden.